


week 1 // when the world has stars crossing before your eyes: just say yes

by zfic



Series: ichiruki month 2K20 *.~ [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fae AU, Telepathic Bond, WHAT MORE CAN YOU ASK FOR, Warring Clans, enemies to lovers to fateful beloveds, ichiruki month 2020, in there, ive also sprinkled a little bit of, listen this au is ripe with angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:35:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25842922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zfic/pseuds/zfic
Summary: they knew each other in their minds, though they have never met - or have they?fae au - prompts: once upon a dream, fantasy vs reality, stars in your eyes, crossing blades crossing hearts, betrayal, i see you fall to pieces like a hero, why are you full of rage?because you are full of grief
Relationships: Kuchiki Rukia & Kurosaki Ichigo, Kuchiki Rukia/Kurosaki Ichigo
Series: ichiruki month 2K20 *.~ [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875241
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16





	week 1 // when the world has stars crossing before your eyes: just say yes

She feels Black Sun before she’s even asleep. The tendrils of his dark essence brush against the edges of her mind, warming her. Not probing, it doesn’t seem like he realises what he’s doing, how far he’s reaching through the inky night to get to her.

Rukia knows she is dreaming, she knows he is asleep, too. And yet, they speak to each other - no words, no voices, just them.

Sometimes she sees herself, either within her own body, looking through her own eyes, or from afar, as if watching another person reach out, touch at the airy space between their worlds and follow the path they set to him.

As close as she gets, she’s never seen him. And he, she believes, has never seen her. Rukia wonders what he looks like, where he is, why she feels safe in his company despite never having met him.

Is he even real?

There is no doubt that he is, no doubt that her sleeping hours are occupied by silent conversations and a sense of belonging so strong, that when she wakes she is suddenly, disappointingly bereft.

Rukia opens her eyes and the canopy of stars above her stare back, shining bright, but cold. They are contradictions, much like Black Sun. He is warm, and she senses his touch would burn if they ever met, but he is dark and shrouded. Calm, yet beneath still waters are surging flames that rival the sun herself.

She is high fae, she is meant to believe in such things as fate, destiny, insevereable and irreplaceable bonds. And she does, now. Perhaps she was ample in skepticism when she was younger, drafted into countless wars and battles by her royal family and seeing the products of fate lying bloody and scarred on the ground at her feet.

Five years have passed since her communication with Black Sun became more and more of a frequent reality, believing at first that it was all fantastical imaginings of a war-weary duchess, some small comfort she invented to distract herself from the crunch of bone beneath the edge of her sword.

Rukia turns onto her side, a sigh escaping her as she moves to sit up, lifting herself above the walls of purple verbena, crocuses and white chrysanthemum. Her sister’s field is one of the few places Rukia can trust to sleep peacefully. It’s a safety net, of sorts. One of the only places in her brother’s palace that was left to _her_ and so unbreached by uninvited guests.

Until now, that is.

Her body tenses with instincts honed over hundreds of years and she whips her head round to stare over her shoulder at the edge of the family estate. Rukia’s eyes narrow, picking apart the shadow between the wisteria and cherry blossom trees surrounding her field.

There.

Golden eyes suddenly enter her field of vision, a slice of black metal and a wisp of bright hair. She falls back to the ground, narrowly missing the oncoming blade, and her own manifests in her palm, the whitest alloy known to their world.

Their swords clash, the sound sharp and tinny in the cool night, and she grits her teeth under the pressure of his strength baring down on her. The soft earth gives beneath her as she looks over the crossing of their swords into the eyes of her attacker.

“How did you get past the wards?” Rukia demands, her voice strained.

Ichigo Kurosaki doesn’t answer, his light hair lifting off his handsome face in the gentle breeze.

“ _Answer me_.”

Again, she is met with silence. He forces his blade down and Rukia’s arms scream under the sheer power of the weight.

_Enough_ , she thinks, and she tilts her sword to angle the tip of it upwards, meaning to slice straight at the side of his head and quickly dodging his own as it comes down upon her. But she’s fast, they both are, and she uses the shift in weight push him off her just as he blocks her with the heavy bracer strapped to his wrist.

Rukia kisses her teeth and leaps backwards - eight, ten feet away from him.

They face each other, the breeze fluttering her homely silks and his dark hakama. Sweat has the material clinging to her body, and though these are strong fae fibres, she is keenly aware of her lack of armour and battle charms around her.

Rukia assumes her stance, ready to take his deathly speed head on.

Ichigo doesn’t move.

“I’m getting tired of the silent treatment, _daemon_.”

His gaze levels to her when he slowly sheathes his sword, and Rukia realises the little armour he wears, too. Just his leather bracers. His hakama is parted, dangerously exposing his strong chest. Strong, but with her blade, easily pierceable.

If this was a ploy to throw her off guard, it has the opposite effect. She raises her sword, ready to rush at him as she fills her lungs with enough breath to shout, alerting the sentries posted just out of view over the valley behind her.

“Don’t.”

Rukia shakes her head, raven hair tickling her bare shoulders, “ _Don’t_?” She kicks off the ground and runs at him.

And then she feels it.

A tendril of dark warmth within her mind, a creeping, cautious thing that only touches at her, as if it were scared of rejection. Though careful, it is strong, far stronger than any brush from Black Sun she’s ever felt when asleep.

But she is awake, now, and looking directly into his intense eyes.

“No.” Rukia breathes, the grip on her hilt tightening, “No.”

Ichigo raises his hands, in surrender, in defense of himself, Rukia doesn’t care, “Listen to me.”

“ _Listen to you_?”

Her world is reeling, the ground uneven beneath her feet. The man standing before her, who she’s met countless times on the battlefield, whose blade has crossed with hers at every chance possible.

Whom she’d taken as a lover more often than she’d care to admit.

“Rukia.” And he looks at her with those infuriatingly beautiful eyes. Pleading, she realises, he is pleading.

For what?

Her breath catches in her throat as she recognises it. Ichigo is pleading for forgiveness.

“You knew.” She whispers, brow knitted together as she works it out, works it all out, “How long?”

He takes a step forward, the apple of his throat bobbing. He opens his mouth, then thinks better of it and closes it again, raking a hand through his choppy hair, “Since Kings Passing.”

Her eyes widen and the acrid taste of betrayal fills her mouth, her nose, “Two years.”

Ichigo nods, curtly, and takes another step towards her, “I wanted to tell you.”

“But you didn’t.” She snaps, “You let me lie with you and you said _nothing_.”

“I was _afraid_ , Rukia.” He growls back, anger crossing his face, “I couldn’t-,” he clenches his jaw, “I couldn’t face the reality of ending this, of _you_ ending this because you’d rather let yourself fall to pieces like some kind of hero and make me _watch_ than admit what we have in our dreams is just as possible in the real world, too.”

She shakes her head again, breathing deeply as his words slam into her one after another, knocking her for six, “You’re wrong.”

“Am I?” Ichigo says, gentle this time, but no less infuriated, “You would do anything for your clan, you’d die for them if they asked it of you,” he is suddenly in front of her, faster than a blink of an eye, pushing at the edge of her sword with the flat of his bracer, and Rukia has to crane her head back to meet his gaze, “You choose them over yourself.”

For once, she is stunned silent. The heat of his body, so close to hers, seeping through her silks and into her skin.

“Why is it that the only time you allow me taste you is under the cover of darkness so thick, the only light I can see you by is the stars in your eyes?”

“Ichigo...”

“I do not believe for a _second_ that you didn’t know it was me.” He lowers his head, their lips an inch apart as his sweet breath tumbles across her cheek, “You kidded yourself into thinking I was someone else because the fear of choosing between your loyalties and your heart was too much to bear.”

Their eyes meet, “Why are you so full of rage?” She whispers.

“Because you are full of grief.” He pauses, his free hand curling in the loose strap of her dress, “Because maybe I’m mistaken.”

Ichigo’s gaze drops to her mouth, “Because you’d choose me over yourself.”

Rukia swallows, anxiety pooling in her chest at his words.

“You avoided this, pushed the possibility of Black Sun being me away to _protect_ me?” His grip on her tightens, “You knew I’d fight a thousand fae and more for your hand in marriage.”

“To a bride that does not want you.”

“Does she not?” The corner of his mouth lifts in a challenging smile, “Her sword has stilled.”

Rukia snorts, “And that’s acceptance enough for you?”

“Better than what you did to me in Jerra.”

Her eyes flash at the opportunity to resume their common banter. The tête-à-tête they enjoyed at the meeting of their weapons and bodies alike, “During or after the battle?”

He chuckles and his hand flexing to brush his fingers against her alabaster skin. They brandish her, and she keeps deathly still to stop herself from checking that there isn’t, indeed, an imprint of his touch burnt into her shoulder.

“Marry me, Rukia.”

She licks her lips and tentatively reaches out with her mind. Calming the sleet and storm behind her eyes to something softer, lighter. It is an acquiescence of sorts, though less to do with reluctance. More, she realises, to do with her fear - rejection from her family and the pain and death she could bring to him with her acceptance.

Her heart, always so cold and frosty, melted long ago. She knows the moment he first touched her with his mind, and then again with his hands, his lips, she was no longer the Duchess of Ice.

His mind welcomes her, his dark warmth meeting her halfway and tenderly caressing the edges of her snowy coils. Her face heats, she is safe. He is safe.

Perhaps he is right. That her insistent denial of Black Sun’s identity was a way to protect them both. To keep what they had in their dreams, sustain when they met with urgency and need beneath a bowed tree, on an isolated beach, under the stars on a hot summer night.

But Rukia is still terrified.

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> okay i understand the summary is shitty and im sorry but with these prompt-based fics i can never like.....hhhhh summarise them properly,, this should be a multi chapter fic though so please enjoy!!!
> 
> oh also! here's my tumblr: zfic.tumblr.com if you could give this fic a reblog id be eternally grateful!!!!


End file.
